Flattery Will Get You Everywhere
by Brid Riain
Summary: A canon missing scene from GoF is explored. Just what did Professor Moody put in Neville's tea?


I'm back! And with a very random fic, I might add. About four months ago, I attempted to come up with a missing scene alluded to somewhere in the Harry Potter universe I would have loved to have seen and this immediately came to mind. At the time, I honestly couldn't ellucidate my ideas properly, but I think I've finally done it. I don't believe anyone else has attempted this, and if they have, my apologies. A switch of perspective should be up within a few days.

  
_Neville was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse._

"Neville?" Hermione said gently.

Neville looked around.

"Oh hello," he said, his voice much higher than usual. "Interesting lesson, wasn't it? I wonder what's for dinner, I'm -- I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Neville, are you all right?" said Hermione.

"Oh yes, I'm fine," Neville gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. "Very interesting dinner -- I mean lesson -- what's for eating?"

Ron gave Harry a startled look.

"Neville, what--?"

But an odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor Moody limping towards them. All four of them fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.

"It's all right, sonny," he said to Neville. "Why don't you come up to my office? Come on ... we can have a cup of tea...."

Neville looked pleadingly at Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but they didn't say anything, so Neville had no choice but to allow himself to be steered away, one of Moody's gnarled hands on his shoulder.

Pages 218-19, J.K. Rowling's Goblet of Fire

  


**_Flattery Will Get You Everywhere_**

  
  
The aged appendage gripped his shoulder gently but firmly, supporting and directing him towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office. Consumed by grief and terror as he was, Neville speculated rather wildly about the intentions of his grizzled teacher. As the horrors his suitably creative mind conjured grew more terrifying and horrible, the leaden weight of dread embedded in his abdomen increased in size and sharpness, until it felt as though tiny knives were slashing viciously at his innards and he would surely sink to the floor at any moment, weary with pain and exhaustion. Beads of sweat popped out of his pores and trickled down his face and neck, despite the chill air, and he added freezing to death to his internal checklist of atrocities. When he had reached the point of simply crumpling up at Moody's feet and passing out or tearing himself from his grasp and making a run for it, the Door loomed a mere ten feet away. Eyes widening in anticipation of torment and torture, Neville was vaguely surprised when instead of cursing him on the spot, or at the very least giving him a good talking to, (otherwise known as yelling at), as his Gran would have done for falling apart as he had, the former Auror simply gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder and stepped up to his office door, muttering incantations and disengaging spells, obviously designed to keep his office secure. In a cold and calm corner of his mind previously dormant, Neville thought, _That's an awful lot of wards on that door. I wonder what he's hiding..._ before the seizure of the more familiar portions of his consciousness overtook his long-unused clinical side.

Finally, the unbalanced gaze returned to face Neville, and Moody beckoned the boy to precede him into the room. As he forced down bit of the terror and took a few tentative steps forward, the older man gave what he must have considered an encouraging smile. However, the diagonal gash of a mouth could only vaguely turn up on one side, and its cheerful intent fell flat. Still, Neville attempted to return the grin with a rather shaky and watery one of his own, and when he finally entered the room enough to clearly view its contents, he couldn't help but gasp in wonder. Moody had on display the most complete collection of sophisticated Dark Arts Detectors outside the Ministry, and the humming golden aerial and smoky foe glass drew Neville's attention particularly. Quickly, though, he observed that something was amiss with many of the implements.

Clearing his rusty throat, he began in a tentatively hoarse voice more like his own than the falsetto he had gibbered in after class. "Sir, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your sneakoscope? I mean, it's broken."

The bark of laugh that greeted this question startled and chagrined the shaken student, and when Neville made to apologize, Moody waved a hand at him. "No, no, that's a legitimate question. In a school such a Hogwarts, there's no way to leave these tools operational without being driven batty. There are just too many kids around lying about why they didn't show up for class or do their homework. Deceit is everywhere, and these truth detectors can't tell the difference between a cheating student and serious Dark activity. Now, sonny, why don't I put on the kettle?"

"Sh-Sure, sir." At Moody's gesture towards a wooden seat before his desk, Neville plopped himself down and watched, transfixed, as the worn man limped around, preparing their tea. As his musings drifted once more to the day's lecture, he wondered at Moody's sensitivity. It certainly wasn't as if any other teacher had been easy on him, excepting, perhaps, Professor Sprout. His own gift with plant life and shunning of social interaction was very much in tune with her nature, and he often spent free time in the greenhouses. He found it cleared his typically jumbled and frantic thoughts, leaving all his problems much more palatable. If only he could tend to seedlings during Potions classes...His musings were interrupted, however, by a train of thought parallel to his own.

"I'll forget my own head next. I invited you up here, boy, because I've heard you're a fine hand with the soil. Professor Sprout's been saying you're tops in her Herbology class, and I've just remembered I have a few books on the subject myself. They're just gathering dust here, so if you'd like to take a look at them, be my guest."

Neville's eyes shone with unusual pride. The sliver of trepidation that seemed to haunt his countenance constantly was missing, and it made his round face appear more handsome and strong-jawed.

"I'd really like that, Professor. What are they about?" The eagerness in his voice was impossible to tamp down, and his enthusiasm drew another rumbling chuckle out of Moody.

"I know I've one here about something to do with warm climate ones. They belonged to my mother; I've never had much of a fancy for greenery, myself." At the mention of familial relations Neville didn't often like to think about, the glow dimmed somewhat. A barely perceptible widening of the eyes showed Moody's comprehension of his folly, but he plowed on. "Are you alright, boy? I'm sure it's very -- very hard." He spoke hesitantly, as thought emotions were something foreign and frightening. Coming from a battler against the Dark, Neville found his trepidation oddly reassuring.

He rallied and spoke. "I'm really okay, sir." Needing badly to show his gratitude, not only for the books and the inquiries, but the genuine show of emotion, he hesitantly added, "No one's really asked about it, sir. I -- I mean to say, well...thank you." Although he had stuttered on delivery, Neville rather felt Moody had gotten the message.

Looking strangely touched, he gave another lopsided grin, which reassured more than frightened, and muttered, "It was no problem, Longbottom. Now drink your tea and scoot." Neville couldn't help but smile shyly at the DADA teacher as he gulped down the warm tea. Something about it reminded him of being twirled about when he was small; this seemed very strange indeed, as he could hardly remember what the homework assignments for his classes that day had been, let alone what life had been like with two warm, loving parents. Odd, that. And he suddenly felt a connection previously unexplored with Harry Potter, the classmate he had admired and envied since their first year. They were both orphans in a way, and Neville felt the urge to help Harry in any way he could. As he thanked Professor Moody once more and hurried from the room, toting more than the books he'd been leant, Neville Longbottom felt as if he weren't alone in the world for the first time in ten years. Blissful as he was, he didn't note the strangely predatory smile his teacher wore as he watched him leave the room. 


End file.
